Distance
by Blonde Spirit
Summary: Written in response to the running away challenge.


**Distance.**

**Written for Pinky's Running away challenge on the challenges forum, may be a one shot or I may add to it.**

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Charlie stood before his parents, head hanging low, he knew he was quite possibly breaking his mother's heart all over again.

Guilt threatened to consume him. They'd buried Fred a week before, and Charlie felt trapped and claustrophobic. Molly was holding very tight to her remaining children, but Charlie was the free spirit. He'd left home at seventeen and made his way on his own. He knew that he needed to grieve for his brother yet also knew that he could not do it around the people he loved most. During his life in Romania he'd learned to deal with things on his own, and was finding it hard to open up to any of his family, even his father and older brother Bill, whom he greatly admired. Bill had his hands full with a family on the way and Arthur was grieving for a lost son. Charlie felt most guilty for leaving his mother, and George. He and George had drifted together over the last fortnight, George had leaned on Charlie a lot, and they had spent almost every day and night together, Charlie even sleeping in Fred's bed to comfort George during the night.

"I'm sorry" he said, looking at the floor between him and his parents "But I have to"

"You have to do what you have to do son" said Arthur, removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. Charlie looked at his father, noticing the careworn expression, the lines on his face and a sprinkling of grey through his hair. He looked older than Charlie remembered and he wondered when he had last truly looked at his father.

Molly sat down heavily in a dining chair "Now Charlie?" she asked. He now studied his mother, she looked broken. Worn out and beaten down, hardly surprising seeing as she had just buried one of her children, not to mention fought in the same war they all had with her lioness mothers instinct with seven of them she felt the need to protect, and that was without Hermione and Harry.

"Yes Mum" he said quietly, meeting her eyes for the first time "Two days, I'll go back in two days, but I'll come home more often. This time I promise" he vowed, and he meant to keep the vow, but for now he needed the space of Romania and the comfort of the animals that he had come to trust over humans with his thoughts and emotions.

"You always were so independent" Molly smiled at him through a wave of fresh tears "Even as a little boy, you are the one I worry least about, but I still worry" She stood and opened her arms to him "I don't want you to go Charlie, but I know that you are doing what you feel is right, but be warned, I _need_ you to come home more often than twice a year Charlie"

Charlie hugged her, a head taller then her he buried his face in her shoulder and swallowed the lump in his throat. He took in her scent, the soap she used, the aroma of cooking and her perfume, and something that was just _his mum_. He didn't know how long they embraced, but he knew that when they finally parted, Molly and Arthur understood his motives and although they were disappointed, they were supporting him.

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Charlie stood at the gate to the garden at The Burrow, he hugged the family in turn, kissing Hermione, Ginny and Fleur on the cheek. His parents and George stood a little away from the rest. He hugged his father, nodding as Arthur told Charlie to look after himself in a rough voice. He hugged Molly hard, telling her that he would be home in eight weeks and he would write every week, without fail. George held Charlie's bag, and handed it to him as he approached his younger brother, he fell instep with Charlie as they walked up the hill to where Charlie would apparate, the first stage of his long and complicated journey back to Romania.

They stopped at the top, Charlie surveying the countryside before turning and facing his brother.

"If you need me, anytime" he rested a hand on George's shoulder "Just come, promise me?"

George nodded slowly and Charlie's heart broke a little more as he saw the look of hopelessness on his face, the one that George had worn since Fred died.

"Likewise" was all George said as they looked at each other, both concerned about the other "Thank you Charlie"

"I'm always there George" Charlie pledged "I love you"

"I love you big bruv" George said as his eyes filled, the use of the nickname that the twins had used for him and Bill almost undid Charlie and he reached out and hugged George briefly before grabbing his bag and apparating away.

Charlie wiped the tears away quickly as he completed the first stage of his apparition. Looking around him he realised there was no one there to see anyway, The Leaky Cauldron was eerily quiet. Resisting the urge to stay there and get blind drunk, he quickly picked up his bag and headed for the fireplace from where he would floo to his next destination. He knew in his heart he was running away, but he needed to put as much distance between himself and the heartbreak as possible. Maybe then he could look inside himself and start to come to terms with the death of a brother whose life he had taken for granted.

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End file.
